Accuracy of Emergency Ultrasonography for Biliary Parameters by Physicians with Limited Training

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine for upper abdominal pain, the accuracy of emergency abdominal ultrasonography (EAU) performed by emergency physicians with limited training. Methods: Two PGY-3 emergency physicians, who had received 2 hours of hands-on training, including the normal anatomy of a biliary system, liver, kidney, spleen, and pancreas, and who had studied the pathologic findings for another month were the subjects of this study. They used a Sonosite 180® to perform EAU on patients with upper abdominal pain within 2 months after training. We determined the agreement between the radiologist's abdominal ultrasonography (RAU) and EAU by using Kappa statistics. Results: A total of 59 patients were enrolled. The agreement between the EAU and the RAU findings was 0.97, 0.88, 0.79, 0.62, and 0.57 for gall bladder (GB) distension, cholelithiasis, GB wall thickening, duct dilatation, choledocholithiasis, and pericholecystic fluid, respectively (p